“I was just thinking what it must have been like. For Doris.”
“It was shit. The whole system was shit. The whole system is still shit. It’s just slightly less shit.”
Two minutes ago, a bunch of swearing with a covertly anti-establishment worldview would have been all Audrey needed from Jennifer. But now she’d got herself turned around and somewhere in the distance, alarms were starting to clamour. “Okay, but, I’m not doing social commentary here. I just mean…how she must have felt. Even if she was trapped by an unjust system, she still loves this place. She still loved somebody who lived here. Maybe still loves her.”
And perhaps it was the light, but Audrey saw a coldness inJennifer’s eyes that she hadn’t before. “Right. Because loving something means it can’t possibly be bad for you.”
Audrey’s breath caught. She wanted to say nine different things at once—That’s not what I was sayingandOf course it doesn’tandThis wasn’t supposed to be an argumentandPlease, please hear me—but she managed to say exactly none of them.
Jennifer half-turned to look at her, and Audrey tried so hard to see understanding in her expression and she couldn’t. “Something wrong?”
“Not really.” Staring past Jennifer, at the distant light of Patchley, Audrey tried to lose herself and come back to herself all at once. “I’m just…processing some things I suppose.”
“And?”
Something about thatandmade a little string inside Audrey’s heart that had been fraying for a long time now snap all at once. “Wow. You’re so easy to talk to.”
“You seem to have managed so far.”
“And you don’t want to say, I don’t know, ‘What sort of things are you processing, Audrey?’”
“I could,” conceded Jennifer, in the fashion of someone conceding absolutely nothing. “But I’m not sure I can be fucked.”
Audrey threw her hands in the air. “Great. Nice to know. And fuck you.”
She stomped off towards the house, not sure whether she wanted to cry or set Jennifer’s trailer on fire. Or both. Both could be good.
“I’m not going to chase after you, Lane,” said Jennifer, chasing after her.
“Good,” yelled Audrey. “Because I don’t want you to.”
Jennifer caught her by the elbow and spun her round. “Letme guess. You only went to London because you’d fallen for some judgmental journo bitch—”
“Natalie wasn’t—”
“She blatantly was. And either way she broke your heart or fucked you up so you moved back to pigfuck nowhere and now you’re looking for meaning in someone else’s memories and making the same mistakes all over again with a slightly different flavour of terrible woman.”
It was nothing Audrey hadn’t thought for herself. But having it said out loud, and put so bluntly, made her feel cheap and obvious. “It’s…I’m…it’s more complicated than that.”
“Are you sure? Because, if you haven’t noticed, I’m a complete piece of shit.”
Audrey stared up at her. Jennifer’s face looked especially harsh in the moonlight, all angles and ferocity. Weirdly, seeing her like this, it made it harder to be angry at her. Especially because, for once, she was directing her venom at herself. “I don’t think you’re—”
“Oh, come on, I just upset you so much you stormed off down an unfamiliar hill in the dark despite being way too countryside not to know that’s a lousy fucking idea. You can tell me I’m not a nice person, I’m big enough to take it.”
If this had been a trick to get Audrey to calm down, it was kind of working. Although that, in its own way, was also annoying.
Oh come on, said Natalie,I’m nothing like this woman. I cared about you. I tried to help you. I wanted you to be better.
“I…” Audrey tried and when that didn’t work she had a go at, “You…”
“I,you? Is that all you’ve got?” asked Jennifer, folding her arms.
Audrey folded her arms back. “Okay.”
Finally, said Natalie.Tell her—
“If that’s the way you want it,” said Audrey, “you’re a piece of shit. You fucking suck. You drive me round the bend and up the wall and yes you do make me want to cry sometimes but…” Natalie had a lot to say about this. She might even have been right. But Audrey wasn’t listening and didn’t care. “You’re notlikeher, because…because when you’ve hurt me or upset me or pissed me off—and you’ve mostly just pissed me off—I’ve never once blamed myself.”
